There is also a huge disparity between allowing people to play these roles (which is fine) and seeing these characters forcing that RP on others in public areas and then screaming bigotry and offensive reactions when people ICly respond negatively. I'm not saying that's what's going on. I've seen it elsewhere and I've seen it in previous iterations of the game. Please understand this stance. If you RP something that is the extreme outlier to canon, it's well within the other players' rights to react as would be normal in canon as an IC matter. It has nothing to do with anyone's opinions OOCly.

[Petition:***] Why is there a pretty pink pony with doe eyes and a party-balloon cutie mark in the group?

To state my personal opinion in the very briefest way:
Making it a policy that homosexuality is marginalized, and that homosexuals can expect IC negativity seems entirely reasonable.
Trying to state that homosexuals don't exist would make me intensely uncomfortable.

Hazgarn wrote:To state my personal opinion in the very briefest way:
Making it a policy that homosexuality is marginalized, and that homosexuals can expect IC negativity seems entirely reasonable.
Trying to state that homosexuals don't exist would make me intensely uncomfortable.

The closest we have to homosexuality is the Sam/Frodo relationship which we all know has been explained countless times as a parallel of the British Army class system if batting for an Officer.

There is not a single (i may be wrong) recorded instance of such in his vast legendarium. At the horrid risk of sounding like Rick Santorum, would we allows other sexual/gender idenities? A hunter that is male but identifies as female, big burly warrior that prefers wearing a dress.

IRL its cool, personally kiseed 3 fellers myself (wife can confirm) but this is not it.

As long as you don't hit people over the head with it and force them to react IC to something that isn't mentioned a single time in the source material, I honestly don't think very many people will care either way. It's not as if it has caused problems very often in the game's past.

Hawkwind wrote:
This is Tolkiens world we play in. Nyn voiced my own opinions perfectly.

Indeed. She even offered up some good alternatives. And there are many more that could be conjured.

Also, I'm really glad to see males and females are 100% equal. It may not be congruent with Tolkien's original world conception, but some changes are truly for the better and in this case I don't think it really alters his vision at all.

Just to briefly state my opinion on the matter, I think even marginalizing homosexuality already goes too far. Bigotry is wrong in real life, and it's wrong here, too. Just because you can find a justification for it in Tolkien's writings doesn't make it okay. We are modern people with modern sensibilities, and this game can still be plenty Tolkien without it.

It's ugly. It's wrong. It turns off players who are gay. Who wants to deal with that in RL and then come deal with it here, too?

Hazgarn wrote:To state my personal opinion in the very briefest way:
Making it a policy that homosexuality is marginalized, and that homosexuals can expect IC negativity seems entirely reasonable.
Trying to state that homosexuals don't exist would make me intensely uncomfortable.

Did they exist in Tolkien's world? Not explicitly.

Did frogs? Not explicitly.

So, I'm not going to prevent anyone from playing a certain character. But, just expect if you play Captain Shakespear that there may be IG repercussions.

Throttle wrote:As long as you don't hit people over the head with it and force them to react IC to something that isn't mentioned a single time in the source material, I honestly don't think very many people will care either way. It's not as if it has caused problems very often in the game's past.

There are problems for those who try to true to their characters and their roleplay. Marlowe was homosexual (I enjoyed the roleplay I had with him myself), a PC was called a homophobic ass for not wanting to sit at the same table and was subsequently made a pariah because of his opinions. We say that they should be marginalized but that never happens. Ever. Just like mutants in ARPI, they were to be social outcasts until we had the beautiful ones they were accepted with open arms. We can not be trusted to roleplay anything authentic or true without explicit instructions. A staff ruling one way or another would help I believe.

Is that sufficiently clear? If not, here it is in a blunter form: there is a troubling tendency for the female characters presently in-game to be set up as if they require the protection and nigh-constant attention of their male peers, or to be hyper-sexualised, which they then flaunt and use to their advantage, or to act younger than they are, thus garnering sympathy from many (whether intentionally or not, and regardless of it not really fitting the setting).

that certainly isn't the case with my female character, she be mighty pissed if any characters acted like the needed to protect her.

hobbitboots wrote:Just to briefly state my opinion on the matter, I think even marginalizing homosexuality already goes too far. Bigotry is wrong in real life, and it's wrong here, too. Just because you can find a justification for it in Tolkien's writings doesn't make it okay. We are modern people with modern sensibilities, and this game can still be plenty Tolkien without it.

It's ugly. It's wrong. It turns off players who are gay. Who wants to deal with that in RL and then come deal with it here, too?

Have some empathy!

And one of these, too!

There is no one here who is more empathetic to that sort of a situation than me. /TRUST/ me on that, really.

I just look at a situation of like... Eowyn. That just /wouldn't/ happen if she were accepted as everyone else.

You guys don't seem to read or at least comprehend. They already said they weren't going to prevent anybody from playing a homosexual character or somebody that went against the norm, just made it a point to say that there -is- a norm.

I think we are all on the same page about homosexuality, or atleast the same chapter. Everyone is allowed to play whatever character they wish. Tolkien didnt say it, Tolkien didnt mention it, he never went there. We live in a world where these realities exist and i think, for the most part we accept them.

We can apply a Christian standpoint to our game because of Tolkiens stance, but what fun is that? I believe Canon is very important. Extremely important. But that means what happened to Elros and his decendants other than what would happen if there was a homosexual in Gondor.

Now, about language.
Swearing was non existant in Tolkien. Probably because he wrote The Hobbit for his children, LotR was a sequel and The Silmarillion was meant to create/replace English Mythology (for himself). Should it exist in SoI? Sure. I think so. Should it contain the same swear words as we use today? Maybe not. But that is up to player preference.

Someone made mention (sorry, too tired to check who) of the humans in Utterby being rustic, and probably are not the most glib people. This is true. But there are other ways to show lack of language skills than swearing. At least I tell my students that.
But it all comes down to player choice. If your character swears, I'm ok with that. If they use creative swearing? Very cool.

Its up to the players to do what they want and think is best. They might not choose what I would, and that is their choice.

Taurgalas wrote:There is also a huge disparity between allowing people to play these roles (which is fine) and seeing these characters forcing that RP on others in public areas and then screaming bigotry and offensive reactions when people ICly respond negatively. I'm not saying that's what's going on. I've seen it elsewhere and I've seen it in previous iterations of the game. Please understand this stance. If you RP something that is the extreme outlier to canon, it's well within the other players' rights to react as would be normal in canon as an IC matter. It has nothing to do with anyone's opinions OOCly.

This. If you choose to play a social outlier (something I've certainly done), embrace IC bigotry and conflict. That's entirely the fun of choosing to play that role to begin with.

What I was mostly saying is--look, I wasn't telling you not to play those things. That's nowhere near my place or my desire. What I was saying is just, you know, expect at least one character in game (mine) to be sticking to the canon I'm super into, and to be what today would be considered bigoted.

If you play an outlier, I'm going to respond to you like my character would respond to it, regardless of my personal belief system.

I don't want to come across as bigoted because I like sticking to canon. It's got absolutely no reflection on what I actually believe.

“Then he called him Maeglin, which is Sharp Glance, for he perceived that the eyes of his son were more piercing than his own, and his thought could read the secrets of hearts beyond the mist of words.”

hobbitboots wrote:My opinion goes a bit further than that. I don't think a gay player should feel like they have to make a straight character if they want to be somebody of importance in this fantasy world.

Songweaver wrote:This. If you choose to play a social outlier (something I've certainly done), embrace IC bigotry and conflict. That's entirely the fun of choosing to play that role to begin with.

I know there was never an intention to be insensitive, but I felt it was worth placing these two statements side-by side.

Some people playing "social outliers" might not be playing it for the drama any more than the average female player of a female character might be doing so for the male attention. :/

Treat it the same way we treat woman in combat roles, which is another place where we turn a blind eye to canon in favor of inclusiveness.

As we know, woman in combat are understood to be odd birds. Players are welcome to roleplay giving them a hard time about it in accordance with Tolkien's traditionalist setting, but in the end nothing about the game's roleplay guidelines prevents them from joining the guard or rising in rank.

Likewise, homosexuality is odd. Some people plain don't like it. But on the whole, people don't lose their jobs over it, and it doesn't hinder them from rising to positions of authority.

This way, people who want to play as Tolkien traditionalists can play as they like, and gay players can play gay characters without wondering if it's a fool's errand.

hobbitboots wrote:On the one hand, I don't have a big problem with people roleplaying as bigots since obviously Tolkien wouldn't have had it any other way. (friendly jabbing sarcasm)

My argument is more one in favor of inclusiveness as a game design choice.

Ask yourself what is more important. Is being anti-gay that central to Tolkien's mythology? Is that part of the mythology worth alienating your fellow players over?

The staff already said making homosexual characters is allowed, and there obviously isn't going to be an unrelenting, cruel wave of hate being directed at said individuals because most players tend to be liberal and carry their views into the game. At least, this is what I've seen for the playerbase regarding Atonement and other RPIs such as Armageddon.

I think your 'recommendation' is how the staff is already handling the situation, so I wouldn't be too worried. I think the whole 'muh canon!' and 'muh equality! (should carry over into a fantasy game)' is pretty silly.

Well, I'm glad to hear you think so, but my impression is that staff have not decided on this issue yet. In fact, I recall Icarus joked that it was premature to be worrying about this when we don't even have grates yet.

I don't think it's silly to care about canon. It isn't my canon, it's Tolkien's canon, and this is a Tolkien-based game.

I never said anybody else had to follow it. But someone asked questions--canon questions--in another thread, and I was attempting to answer them to the best of my abilities.

I even made like, six disclaimers of "it's your prerogative, do what you want."

“Then he called him Maeglin, which is Sharp Glance, for he perceived that the eyes of his son were more piercing than his own, and his thought could read the secrets of hearts beyond the mist of words.”

Yes, it's not particularly an issue that I feel warrants a huge amount of time right now...

but -- I'll make this very clear.

The Shadows of Isildur Community does not discriminate against any player, regardless of race, creed, sexuality, belief-system, inability to be socially articulate, mental disorders, physical disabilities, etc. All are welcome here to enjoy the incredible world that Tolkien created. We are all inclusive, and any behavior to the contrary will lead to an immediate expulsion from our community.

Major plot points of Tolkien's world centered around unsavory topics for today. This includes black people being predominantly aligned with evil races, as well discrimination based on gender and sexuality. It takes a mature approach to balance this reality with the fact that we live in the 21st century, and these outmoded attitudes no longer apply to us. But, they are /part/ of the world Tolkien made, and a part of our universe, for better or for ill.

We expect maturity from our players in dealing with these topics. Harassment ICly that approaches an OOC nature will not be tolerated. Reasonable reactions, however, that reflect the canon that we participate in, such as shock at a woman soldier or the assumption that swarthyness equates to evil, or negative reactions to premarital sex, or discomfort with outsiders or unfamiliar sexualities, etc etc are part of our gameworld.

We welcome everyone, without exception or qualification. But, we are not going to pretend that Tolkien was the most politically correct fellow.

(That said, do what you are comfortable with. It's a game, and that is simply my perspective. I might have a vNPC make a snide comment at your shield maiden, but then I'm going to get back to the task at hand of running a game and plots that we can all have fun in.)